The Aviation Safety Council (ASC) is soon to unveil the factual details recorded in the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — or “black boxes” — of TransAsia Airways Flight GE222 that crashed on Wednesday night last week, the council said yesterday, adding that it would continue to investigate the cause of the accident.
The airplane crashed close to the Magong Airport in Penghu, killing 48 persons on board and injuring 10 others.
Aviation Safety Council Executive Director Thomas Wang (王興中) said the investigators had recorded the parameters of 180 items from the black boxes, adding that investigators need to compare these parameters with the information provided by air traffic control personnel, the radar system and global positioning system.
Photo: Sam Yeh AFP
“The council will disclose the factual details to the public as soon as the decoding work is complete, but we will continue to investigate the cause of the accident,” he said.
Apart from the council’s investigators, representatives of the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, engine manufacturer Pratt and Whitney Canada, as well as the manufacturer of the ATR72-model aircraft arrived in the nation on Friday to help with the investigation.
According to the council, representatives from these agencies inspected the aircraft wreckage in Magong over the weekend. They are scheduled to meet with council investigators today to integrate all the collected information and sign a confidentiality agreement about the investigation.
The council is also scheduled to present a preliminary investigation report to the International Civil Aviation Organization at the end of next month.
While media reported that the council could unveil the conversations recorded in the cockpit on Wednesday, Wang did not commit to a specific date and simply said the council would do so as soon as the decoding work is done.
The cockpit voice recorder contains the conversations between the pilot and copilot in the last 30 minutes before the crash, including the voices recorded from the microphones of the pilot, the cockpit and cabin broadcast system.
The flight data recorder, on the other hand, records the airplane’s altitude, operational speed, engine performance and other data.
Meanwhile, the rescue team removed the cordons set up around the crash site in Sisi Village (西溪) yesterday. The wreckage was relocated to an air force base in Magong on the weekend.
The military had dispatched personnel to sterilize Sisi Village to prevent the spread of disease. Fire trucks were also sent to clean the area of aviation fuel.
Statistics from the Civil Aeronautics Administration showed that the identities of 46 of the victims have been confirmed as of 4pm yesterday.
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